Amanda Parrell-Kaczmarek | Trinity Fellow 2007-09 | by Robert Cowles
On a chilly spring morning on Marquette University’s campus, a red SUV pulls into an alley between the Rev. Edward J. O’Donnell residence hall and a fenced-in grass field and basketball court. Amanda Parrell-Kaczmarek parks her car in front of a staircase leading to the basement. A small, blue and yellow tin sign hangs outside the staircase with an arrow pointing down. It reads: “The Campus Kitchens at Marquette. We’re Here!”
Parrell-Kaczmarek opens the double doors to Campus Kitchens Project, the organization she’s been with since 2009 as its coordinator. The kitchen is empty now. Stacked cardboard boxes, mostly containing non-perishable food, line the hallway.
A former Trinity Fellow at the university, Parrell-Kaczmarek has devoted her life to nonprofit work and community betterment. Obtaining her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Marquette, she has been in Milwaukee and on campus since her freshman year in 2000. In between her studies, she joined the Peace Corps in 2004, serving in Malawi in southeast Africa, teaching high school students mathematics and English for two years.
“I went into the Peace Corps as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, optimistic little 22-year-old who thought she was going to change the world,” she says, laughing at her young self.
Parrell-Kaczmarek reminisces about the challenges of being in a country where she was completely different than everyone else. “There were days where there would really only be two or three students that I could really engage,” she said. “Sometimes it was hard to see where the change was coming and where I was making a difference.”
Why Parrell-Kaczmarek has dedicated her life to serving her community becomes clearer as she recalls her experience in Malawi. She emphasizes how important making a difference was – and still is – as she contributes to her community through the project.
“Knowing that each day, when I come here, it’s the same thing,” she says. “We’ve got people that we are hopefully making a difference in their lives. Knowing that I’m just not sitting and pushing a button, that there is something else going on, that I’m not just pushing paper.
It’s the career path Parrell-Kaczmarek has been on since her time at the Peace Corps and with the Trinity Fellows program. She’s doing everything but pushing papers this morning. One of her student leaders will arrive soon to plan what meals the other students will make tonight, then an agency is coming to pick up food, after which Parrell-Kaczmarek will help another student take a delivery to another agency. Then, the coordinator she has her own delivery to make to a new organization for the first time. All of which she will do before noon.
It’s a long way from 2007, when Parrell-Kaczmarek returned to the U.S. from Malawi, still looking for a career path. She knew she wanted to continue her nonprofit work, but needed an avenue to start with in Milwaukee. After enrolling at Marquette again as a graduate student, she applied to Trinity Fellows, a graduate program that selects 10 students each year to be placed with nonprofit agencies in Milwaukee as they work toward their master’s degrees.
Trinity program director Carole Ferrara describes Parrell-Kaczmarek as having exactly what the selection committee looks for, or a “Trinity fit” as she called it. Ferrara said the program stresses commitment to social service and community betterment when choosing applicants.
“It isn’t just for the college application, it’s because they’re driven to do this. They’re committed to [social justice],” Ferrara said.
Ferrara tracks all her graduates from the program, but since Parrell-Kaczmarek remained at Marquette, they see each other at least once a week. They talk about work sometimes, but lately it’s been about Parrell-Kaczmarek’s 1-year-old son Solomon. Like all proud mothers, she has dozens of pictures of her son on her iPad that she takes out to showcase at a moment’s notice. Even with her years of nonprofit work, she considers her son to be her greatest accomplishment.
Parrell-Kaczmarek was picky about her job search after graduation, looking for positions in a nonprofit whose cause she could relate with and contribute. After a few months, she stumbled upon a job opening on craigslist.com for The Campus Kitchens Project.
“This position opened up and I was like: ‘That’s really cool! It involves food. I love food. It involves Marquette. I kind of dig Marquette. I get to serve people in the community. I dig that,’” Parrell-Kaczmarek said. “It had all these different aspects of what I wanted to do with my life.”
The kitchen is just one affiliate of the national nonprofit organization The Campus Kitchens. Founded in 2001 by Robert Egger, the project has 43 kitchens at universities in over 26 states nationwide. Egger started his first recovery kitchen in 1989 in Washington. It’s first food recovery came from George H.W. Bush’s inauguration dinner. Shortly after, Egger he expanded and refined his project to work with universities.
Campus Kitchens has been on Marquette’s campus since 2003, serving over 200,000 meals across Milwaukee, with Parrell-Kaczmarek being a part of over half of those.
The project’s mission is to not let food go to waste, especially since it can be such a scarce commodity for many in the city. According to statistics from Hunger Task Force Milwaukee, 29 percent of local residents live below the poverty line, including 43 percent of all children. Over 80 percent of Milwaukee Public School students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, totaling nearly 80,000 students.
Parrell-Kaczmarek’s kitchen, and almost all of its counterparts across the nation, rely on student volunteers and food sourced from university cafeterias. The kitchen does not have the resources of other large nonprofit organizations; Parrell-Kaczmarek and her staff do not know what food they will serve on any given day until they find out what’s available to them.
A handful of volunteers, anywhere from three to 10 depending on the day, prepare meals for delivery four days a week. In the summer, student volunteers are even harder to come by, with Parrell-Kaczmarek having to occasionally step in and prepare meals herself.
The summers can be especially frantic for her. Student volunteers become hard to come by during the break, so she regularly has to help with preparing and delivering food.
Parrell-Kaczmarek normally spends her time maintaining and building new relationships with other nonprofit agencies across Milwaukee. Right now, she has partnerships with 13 organizations to receive meals, including transitional housing, senior homes and the YMCA.
The coordinator begins packing food into transportable freezers to take to the new organization. A quiche, yogurt, fruit and some other healthy snacks. It by no means is a regular, nine-to-five job, but that’s just the way she likes it. “I did enough bulls--- work in my life, I don’t need any more."
Parrell-Kaczmarek opens the double doors to Campus Kitchens Project, the organization she’s been with since 2009 as its coordinator. The kitchen is empty now. Stacked cardboard boxes, mostly containing non-perishable food, line the hallway.
A former Trinity Fellow at the university, Parrell-Kaczmarek has devoted her life to nonprofit work and community betterment. Obtaining her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Marquette, she has been in Milwaukee and on campus since her freshman year in 2000. In between her studies, she joined the Peace Corps in 2004, serving in Malawi in southeast Africa, teaching high school students mathematics and English for two years.
“I went into the Peace Corps as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, optimistic little 22-year-old who thought she was going to change the world,” she says, laughing at her young self.
Parrell-Kaczmarek reminisces about the challenges of being in a country where she was completely different than everyone else. “There were days where there would really only be two or three students that I could really engage,” she said. “Sometimes it was hard to see where the change was coming and where I was making a difference.”
Why Parrell-Kaczmarek has dedicated her life to serving her community becomes clearer as she recalls her experience in Malawi. She emphasizes how important making a difference was – and still is – as she contributes to her community through the project.
“Knowing that each day, when I come here, it’s the same thing,” she says. “We’ve got people that we are hopefully making a difference in their lives. Knowing that I’m just not sitting and pushing a button, that there is something else going on, that I’m not just pushing paper.
It’s the career path Parrell-Kaczmarek has been on since her time at the Peace Corps and with the Trinity Fellows program. She’s doing everything but pushing papers this morning. One of her student leaders will arrive soon to plan what meals the other students will make tonight, then an agency is coming to pick up food, after which Parrell-Kaczmarek will help another student take a delivery to another agency. Then, the coordinator she has her own delivery to make to a new organization for the first time. All of which she will do before noon.
It’s a long way from 2007, when Parrell-Kaczmarek returned to the U.S. from Malawi, still looking for a career path. She knew she wanted to continue her nonprofit work, but needed an avenue to start with in Milwaukee. After enrolling at Marquette again as a graduate student, she applied to Trinity Fellows, a graduate program that selects 10 students each year to be placed with nonprofit agencies in Milwaukee as they work toward their master’s degrees.
Trinity program director Carole Ferrara describes Parrell-Kaczmarek as having exactly what the selection committee looks for, or a “Trinity fit” as she called it. Ferrara said the program stresses commitment to social service and community betterment when choosing applicants.
“It isn’t just for the college application, it’s because they’re driven to do this. They’re committed to [social justice],” Ferrara said.
Ferrara tracks all her graduates from the program, but since Parrell-Kaczmarek remained at Marquette, they see each other at least once a week. They talk about work sometimes, but lately it’s been about Parrell-Kaczmarek’s 1-year-old son Solomon. Like all proud mothers, she has dozens of pictures of her son on her iPad that she takes out to showcase at a moment’s notice. Even with her years of nonprofit work, she considers her son to be her greatest accomplishment.
Parrell-Kaczmarek was picky about her job search after graduation, looking for positions in a nonprofit whose cause she could relate with and contribute. After a few months, she stumbled upon a job opening on craigslist.com for The Campus Kitchens Project.
“This position opened up and I was like: ‘That’s really cool! It involves food. I love food. It involves Marquette. I kind of dig Marquette. I get to serve people in the community. I dig that,’” Parrell-Kaczmarek said. “It had all these different aspects of what I wanted to do with my life.”
The kitchen is just one affiliate of the national nonprofit organization The Campus Kitchens. Founded in 2001 by Robert Egger, the project has 43 kitchens at universities in over 26 states nationwide. Egger started his first recovery kitchen in 1989 in Washington. It’s first food recovery came from George H.W. Bush’s inauguration dinner. Shortly after, Egger he expanded and refined his project to work with universities.
Campus Kitchens has been on Marquette’s campus since 2003, serving over 200,000 meals across Milwaukee, with Parrell-Kaczmarek being a part of over half of those.
The project’s mission is to not let food go to waste, especially since it can be such a scarce commodity for many in the city. According to statistics from Hunger Task Force Milwaukee, 29 percent of local residents live below the poverty line, including 43 percent of all children. Over 80 percent of Milwaukee Public School students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, totaling nearly 80,000 students.
Parrell-Kaczmarek’s kitchen, and almost all of its counterparts across the nation, rely on student volunteers and food sourced from university cafeterias. The kitchen does not have the resources of other large nonprofit organizations; Parrell-Kaczmarek and her staff do not know what food they will serve on any given day until they find out what’s available to them.
A handful of volunteers, anywhere from three to 10 depending on the day, prepare meals for delivery four days a week. In the summer, student volunteers are even harder to come by, with Parrell-Kaczmarek having to occasionally step in and prepare meals herself.
The summers can be especially frantic for her. Student volunteers become hard to come by during the break, so she regularly has to help with preparing and delivering food.
Parrell-Kaczmarek normally spends her time maintaining and building new relationships with other nonprofit agencies across Milwaukee. Right now, she has partnerships with 13 organizations to receive meals, including transitional housing, senior homes and the YMCA.
The coordinator begins packing food into transportable freezers to take to the new organization. A quiche, yogurt, fruit and some other healthy snacks. It by no means is a regular, nine-to-five job, but that’s just the way she likes it. “I did enough bulls--- work in my life, I don’t need any more."